OfstedUpdates March2017

Since September 2016, inspection outcomes published in Essex for Primary Schools have been as follows:

3 category 2 schools became a category 1 school

1 category 3 school became a category 1 school

12 category 3 schools became category 2 schools

22 category 2 schools remained as category 2 schools

11 category 3 schools remained as category 3 schools

1 category 2 school became a category 4 school

3 category 2 schools became category 3 schools

1 category 3 school became a category 4 school

1 category 1 school became a category 3 school

This means that of the 55 schools identified, 16 schools improved their Ofsted grading, 33 remained the same and 6 declined.

Please click on the linksin blue below to access documents, video clips or power point presentations.

School inspection update: March 2017 - Gov.uk

Sean Harford. Ofsted National Director of Education
March 2017
In the link above is a message to inspectors from the national director of education.
It includes the following;
Safeguarding – checking records
Checking records as part of inspecting safeguarding has raised some issues that require clarification. These are as follows.
Trainee teachers − In the case of trainee teachers and students on placement, if they are employed by the setting, school or college, they should be subject to the same checks under regulations as other members of staff. Where trainee teachers are fee-funded, the school or setting should obtain written confirmation from the training provider that these checks have been carried out and that the trainee has been judged by the provider to be suitable to work with children. There is no requirement for a school to record details of fee-funded trainees on the single central record (SCR).
Multi-academy trust (MAT) staff – Every academy in a MAT needs to maintain an SCR. Where the MAT employs staff who are not assigned to an individual academy, these employees must be recorded on the SCR for the MAT, along with all others employed by the MAT and trustees.
MAT teaching staff – where teaching staff work in more than one academy across the MAT, they should be recorded on the SCR for one academy. This should be the academy where they spend the most teaching time or the one against which they are recorded for pay and other purposes. For other academies where the member of staff operates, there should be a reference on the SCR to the fact that their record is held at ‘XX academy’.
Are floor standards met?
Inspectors should now compare the provider’s validated 2016 results with the 2016 floor standard when reporting whether the floor standard has been met. Validated inspection dashboards show on the front page whether the 2016 floor standard has been met. The validated primary dashboard has been released.
Progress scores for each year group
Schools have asked if Ofsted is looking for a particular way of tracking progress within a key stage and using it to predict a school’s progress scores, or those of its pupils.
It is not possible to forecast progress scores reliably. This is mainly because they are based on the national distribution of each cohort’s test performance, which clearly will not be known until after the cohort has taken the test.
In addition, for key stage 2:
attainment is expected to rise as schools’ familiarity with the new, more demanding curriculum increases.
key stage 1 prior attainment will be based on the new teacher assessment framework for the current Year 3, yet levels for older cohorts.
Inspectors should understand from all training and recent updates that there is no national expectation of any particular amount of progress from any starting point. ‘Expected progress’ was a DfE accountability measure until 2015. Inspectors must not use this term when referring to progress for 2016 or current pupils.
Inspectors should only ask to see assessment information, including any pupil- tracking information, in the format that the school would ordinarily use to monitor the progress of pupils in that school. Its purpose is to provide insight about the impact of support to aid pupils with deepening their knowledge, understanding and skills.
Interpreting RAISEonline and inspection dashboards
When considering the progress and attainment in schools, it is important to bear in mind that:
Progress scores at key stage 4 and key stage 2 could have been affected by outliers. Outliers are pupils with extremely high or low progress scores. Some pupils may have very low progress scores because they were not entered for an approved qualification or were absent for the examination. The scatter plots in RAISEonline allow inspectors and schools to identify these.
Small numbers of pupils may render analysis of the data meaningless. Shading of progress data in RAISEonline and inspection dashboards indicates where data was statistically significant, taking into account cohort size.
Implications for inspectors
When considering the key stage 1 to 2 progress scores for schools and pupil groups, inspectors should consider the impact of pupils included who were working below the level of the tests at key stage 2. Pupils on ‘P scales’ or assessed at foundation for the ‘expected standard’ or ‘early development’ of the expected standard, always have negative progress scores. Those assessed at ‘growing development’ of the expected standard can have a positive progress score only if their prior attainment was P6 or below. The inspector training on inspecting outcomes using data for primary schools explains this. Inspectors should consult the validated inspection dashboard prior attainment chart in RAISEonline, which contains a new row showing the number of Year 6 pupils on P scales at key stage 1.
Inspectors should interpret key stage 1 charts with care. These are designed to help schools and inspectors raise questions about the curriculum provision for pupils with different starting points. Inspectors should be clear that there is no expectation of any particular key stage 1 attainment from any starting point and no measure of progress for the key stage.
Inspection and the use of grade predictions
Sean Harford, 2 March 2017- Blog
In short, it’s a mug’s game at times of change in qualifications, and should be avoided. That’s why I have written to all our inspectors in the March 2017 'School inspection update' to ask that they do not request predictions for cohorts about to take examinations; and that goes for key stage 2 SATs as well. I hope this reassures school leaders and teachers that inspectors will just ask how schools have assessed whether their pupils are making the kind of progress they should in their studies and if they are not, what their teachers have been doing to support them to better achievement.
The March 2017 'School inspection update' also explains that, from September, we will be providing inspectors with information about what can and cannot be inferred from this summer’s results. This will be at a couple of different levels: (1) generally how much reliance can be placed on individual subjects to reflect achievement precisely, and (2) how much reliance can be placed on different outcome measures for individual schools. I know that some believe that inspectors place too much reliance on test and exam data, while paradoxically, others criticise us for our judgements not lining up with data sufficiently. I want to assure schools that we will continue to use data as ‘a signpost, not a destination’ for inspection and that our inspectors will come into schools with clear information on what can and cannot be relied upon to even be written on the sign.
Staffing and employment: advice for schools - GOV.UK

24 Feb 2017 –
Guidance for managing staff and employment issues. From: Department for Education
A competency framework for governance - Gov.uk

January 2017
This framework from the DFE sets out the competencies needed for effective governance. It is non- statutory guidance and should be read alongside the Governance Handbook, particularly the section explaining the key features of effective governance. Academy trusts should also refer to the Academies Financial Handbook.
Sean Harford, National Director, Education gave thefollowing presentation on ‘inspection’ at the 'Putting learning first' conference in January.

February 2017
The slide presentation describes the organization and theory of inspections and includes the following 2 slides.
Key Themes in our Inspections
  • Emphasis on impact across all key judgements
  • Impact of the culture of the school
  • Importance of safeguarding as a golden thread throughout all judgements
  • The vital importance of a broad and balanced curriculum
Inspection – what types of evidence do we use?
Evidence for an inspection is drawn from:
  • discussion with school leaders, staff, pupils and parents
  • the school’s own self-evaluation, NOT SEF!
  • national test, exam and attendance data
  • the school’s own assessment information…current progress
  • direct observation of practice during inspection
  • surveys of parents, staff and pupils
  • other documentary material, e.g. on website

RAISEonline Latest News page.
In April the DfE will be launching a new service which will provide schools and other existing user groups with detailed performance analysis to support local school improvement as a replacement toRAISEonline.
RAISEonline will give updates about these developments on the link above.
Promoting fundamental British values through SMSC - GOV.UK

27 Nov 2014 - Departmental advice on promoting basic important British values as part of pupils ' spiritual, moral, social and cultural (SMSC) development.
Although written in 2014, a headteacher was recently directed towards this useful document on Ofsted Twitter.
The document includes the following;
Through their provision of SMSC, schools should:
  • enable students to develop their self-knowledge, self-esteem and self-confidence;
  • enable students to distinguish right from wrong and to respect the civil and criminal law of England;
  • encourage students to accept responsibility for their behaviour, show initiative, and to understand how they can contribute positively to the lives of those living and working in the locality of the school and to society more widely;
  • enable students to acquire a broad general knowledge of and respect for public institutions and services in England;
  • further tolerance and harmony between different cultural traditions by enabling students to acquire an appreciation of and respect for their own and other cultures;
  • encourage respect for other people; and
  • encourage respect for democracy and support for participation in the democratic processes, including respect for the basis on which the law is made and applied in England.
The list below describes the understanding and knowledge expected of pupils as a result of schools promoting fundamental British values.
  • an understanding of how citizens can influence decision-making through the democratic process;
  • an appreciation that living under the rule of law protects individual citizens and is essential for their wellbeing and safety;
  • an understanding that there is a separation of power between the executive and the judiciary, and that while some public bodies such as the police and the army can be held to account through Parliament, others such as the courts maintain independence;
  • an understanding that the freedom to choose and hold other faiths and beliefs is protected in law;
  • an acceptance that other people having different faiths or beliefs to oneself (or having none) should be accepted and tolerated, and should not be the cause of prejudicial or discriminatory behaviour; and
  • an understanding of the importance of identifying and combatting discrimination.
Examples of actions that a school can take
The following is not designed to be exhaustive, but provides a list of different actions that schools can take, such as:
  • include in suitable parts of the curriculum, as appropriate for the age of pupils, material on the strengths, advantages and disadvantages of democracy, and how democracy and the law works in Britain, in contrast to other forms of government in other countries;
  • ensure that all pupils within the school have a voice that is listened to, and demonstrate how democracy works by actively promoting democratic processes such as a school council whose members are voted for by the pupils;
  • use opportunities such as general or local elections to hold mock elections to promote fundamental British values and provide pupils with the opportunity to learn how to argue and defend points of view;
  • use teaching resources from a wide variety of sources to help pupils understand a range of faiths, and
  • consider the role of extra-curricular activity, including any run directly by pupils, in promoting fundamental British values.

Ofsted Parent View: management information -
Ofsted publish this data three times a year to provide a more up-to-date picture of the results within Parent View.
This is always useful to compare national data with your own parent view results.